 Gracious God, Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, would you just bless this brother abundantly in a very mighty way? Would you send your spirit in a very real way, Father, and just move in this assembly this morning? Bless our dear brother. If there's anything that needs to be purged from his life, would you do that purging right now at this moment and give his tongue the ability to just speak and inspire and direct us in the ways that you would have us? Father, would you bring thoughts to his mind perhaps that he's not even considered and just use him as a vessel in a very mighty way for your glory this morning as we worship together in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well good morning. My name is Jacob and I am a slave to my older brother. Now don't feel too sorry for me because I am a willing and joyful servant of my older sibling. Now I can assure you that it has not always been this way. I have not always desired to commit myself to my brother but it is a decision that took place in my life when I was in my late 20s or early 30s. The defining moment of my life. I understand that you have come this morning to hear about James the brother of Jesus. Now that puzzled me a little bit when I heard of that expectation because you see I am a brother of Jesus and there are three others who are also brothers to him. There's Joseph, there's Simon, there's Judas whom we also call Jude and there's me. Jacob, that's my name. And so I did a little bit of digging to find out who this James person was and I came to realize that several hundred years after I walked this earth my name was changed to James. I don't know how it happened but it was. Well if there's anything that I've learned in life it's that true wisdom is gentle and peaceable and willing to yield. And so I will try to call myself James this morning for your sake. However I must say that as I think back over my upbringing it was such a wonderful experience. My older brother's name of course is Jesus and we do not have the same father but we have the same mother. He of course was conceived miraculously through the power of the Holy Spirit in our mother Mary. And my father is Joseph and we were both raised by our earthly parents Joseph and Mary. Now my parents were very devout people. I had such a wonderful upbringing in the home. They were so proud of the Jewish heritage that they had received. They had such visions and dreams for the legacy they wished to pass on to us as their children. And that's why they named me Jacob. When you think about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob there's importance there. And not only were they thinking of the patriarch but they were thinking of my grandfather. My father's father's name is Jacob. And so that's why they gave me that name. Of course the person that I'm most passionate about is my brother. When I think about our growing up years, I'm a bit amazed when I think about how normal everything was. I did not think of my brother as perfect for sure. I got irritated at him. I did not understand him many times. Can you imagine what it's like to live with a brother who is perfectly obedient? It's annoying. I just chalked it up to personality or somehow he was just willing to bend and do whatever dad and mom said. But overall we had a very happy family. There were five of us brothers. There were several sisters. And other than a brief sojourn in Egypt, which I was too young to remember, we grew up in Judea just like most every other Jewish family. One of the things that sticks out to me was the importance that my parents placed on spiritual priorities. And one of the main ways they illustrated that was how they made a yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. We knew that if dad and mom were at all able to make that trip, we would all get to go along and travel with aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbors to go to Jerusalem and engage in that feast. Talk about instilling spiritual values in a family. Maybe that's some of what you are doing here today in coming to this place called Rocksbury, this kingdom fellowship weekend thing. Maybe it's a bit of a yearly pilgrimage for your family to instill spiritual values. Anyway, that's what we experienced as we were growing up. There was that one incident when my brother was 12 and the Passover had happened. We had a great time. We were traveling back from Jerusalem. And Jesus is a normal 12-year-old. We just all assumed that he was out there playing with cousins or traveling with neighbors. We went a whole day without even realizing he wasn't even with us. And well, that caused a lot of tension and concern. We had to drop out of the caravan, turn around, go back to Jerusalem, and try to find and figure out what happened to my brother. And I was a little concerned. But he's 12. He's able to take care of himself. And besides, I had to leave my cousins and friends in order to turn around and look for him. But you know what? We found him. And I thought, I thought, aha, he messed up. In fact, Mom even rebuked him. And then he said something to the effect of, well, don't you know, I need to be about my father's business. I'll tell you what, he was something else. I just thought personality or disposition, I sure did not think divinity. Well, time goes on. We grew up as all young people do, right? Our father passed away and Jesus as the oldest in our family now had responsibility to care for mom and for us as the brothers and sisters. And of course, all of us boys, we'd learned the trade of our father in carpentry and so providing and protecting was no hard difficulty for us. We were glad to do that. But somewhere in the late 20s, early 30s, Jesus really began to do some unusual things. He started gathering these disciples. He was teaching some powerful things, things that caught my attention. And we weren't sure exactly what to make of it all. In fact, crowds started to gather to him. And you know, the things that he was saying really stuck out to me because I had grown up with him. And I could verify that he had lived everything that he was teaching. There was no question about that. But I really couldn't put it all together. I remember one occasion when the crowds were just thronging around him and several of us decided we need to stage an intervention. We need to go and rescue him. He's going mad. He needs to be saved from himself before he gets completely done in by the crowd. That didn't work. Then on another occasion, sometime later, several of his brothers thought, well, if we can't rescue him from himself, maybe we should just tell him to go out there and put it all out in the open. So he said, hey, this Passover is coming up in Jerusalem. Why don't you just go and show yourself to the world? That's what you ought to do. If this is all true and right, what you're saying, he didn't do that either. Personally, I had my own set of concerns. My concern was that as the next oldest, if something happened to him, then obviously the responsibility of the family would fall on me. So there were some personal issues that I was dealing with and what was going on with my brother. But you know, his teachings were something I couldn't get out of my mind. It was so influential because I knew him, even though I certainly was no convert of his. And then it happened. There was just this awful conclusion in Jerusalem. It was over the time of the Passover. We traveled up as we had year after year after year. But that year, things were different. That year, my brother was arrested. And he was tried. He was unfairly tried. He was turned over to the Romans and he was crucified. I can't express to you how devastated we as a family felt. The shock, the grief, the shame. Our brother went from being a household name to being a national disgrace. And we didn't know what to do with all that was happening. There was the hasty burial, the somber silent Sabbath, the shock, the grief. We didn't know what to do. And then the events took an even stranger turn. Suddenly there were reports that there were sightings of my brother, that he was alive again, that there was an empty tomb, grave clothes left behind. We were thick in the midst of grief and we weren't sure what to make of all of this. But then the defining moment happened. Several days after the crucifixion and the accounts of these strange happenings, my brother appeared to me. Suddenly he was there. I could hardly believe it. It was so surreal, but it was real. And we were able to talk. And suddenly everything that I had observed and thought about his life, his miracles, his ministry, his message, suddenly it all came together and I understood. I understood who my brother was. And it was at that moment that I committed myself to him to be his bondservant, his slave, his joyful subject. Of course he ascended to heaven several weeks later, but his presence is still so real to us, so real to me. And from that personal encounter until now everything has changed about my passion and purpose in life. My desire now is for his kingdom to come and his will to be done everywhere. And so my challenge to you is this. Hear my brother's words, but don't just hear them. Be a doer of the words that you hear. Commit to being a bondservant of his. Thank you for listening to my message today. Grace to you in peace be multiplied. My name is Brandon James Byler. We just had James quote unquote share a testimony with us. I'd like to share a few more details with you about this man. His name really is Jacob. Those of you who are Greek readers know that from reading your Greek New Testament texts. But we'll stick with James since that's how we know him best. It is difficult at times to keep track of the Jameses because there are a number of them. It was a common name in that time. At least four Jameses are mentioned in the New Testament. The first James we'll look at just three of them to delineate who they were. The first one is of the Peter, James and John had a little sailboat fame. Brother to John we would understand that he was the older brother since he's always listed first. And that Peter along with those two brothers the sons of Thunder carried on a fishing enterprise together. They were the sons of Zebedee and had quite fiery temperaments. There were two Jameses who were the disciples of Christ and it seems that they were given nicknames to differentiate them one from the other much like we might do today with David or Michael. And those are great names but often there are several David and several Michaels so we designate them. Same happened in Scripture. We have James the Greater or just James. And then the second James that we want to define is James the Less. That doesn't mean that he was less than James the Greater. It doesn't even necessarily mean that he was smaller but it may indicate that he was younger. So we would think of James Senior and James Junior both being part of the 12. James Senior or James the Greater was killed by a king here at Agrippa One in approximately 44 A.D. He was the first of the 12 to be martyred. James the Less was also called the Son of Alpheus and we really don't know a lot about what happened to him after Pentecost. It's possible that he became the leader of the church in Syria. And then the third James is the one that we're focusing on today. He was one of Jesus four brothers and in the several places where the brothers are listed by name James's name always comes first and so we speculate that he was the second oldest brother in the family. We don't have any indication of James becoming a believer until after the resurrection the apostle Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 15. He's talking about the various people to whom Jesus revealed himself and verse six Paul says after that he was seen by James and then by all the apostles. Our understanding would be that that revelation took place between the resurrection and the ascension. The next time that we hear about James is in Acts 114. You recall that Jesus has just ascended to heaven and the people that were there went back to Jerusalem to the upper room to await the promised giving of the Spirit. And Luke says these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and marry the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. Our understanding being that James was with them. So we think back to John seven where it says that his brothers did not believe in him. Now his brothers are in the upper room seeking this gift of the Holy Spirit. Something happened and it's possible and I'm speculating here that perhaps their unbelief in John seven wasn't so much unbelief as it was disbelief or a difficulty to believe. We grew up with this guy. We know him. What does it mean for my brother to be the king of the kingdom of God? It's likely that James was married even though we never hear of his wife or family. And this comes to us from what Paul asks in 1 Corinthians nine five. He says do we have no right to take along a believing wife as do also the other apostles the brothers of the Lord and Cephas. We recognize that James's brother Jude wrote a small letter an epistle in which he opens up the words Jude a bond servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. And of course James wrote his own epistle with a much similar opening very similar wording. James a bond servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that gives us a bit of an overview of James's life. I'd also like us next then to look at the leadership of James. The life of James being what it was. There's also something to consider about the leadership of James and how did he become a leader anyway. We have scripture and early historians both secular and Christian historians who give us some insight into what took place there in those early days. Eusebius who was a church historian living in the fourth century quoting from an earlier work by Clement says that Peter and James and John this would be James the senior and John after the ascension of our Savior though they had been preferred by our Lord did not contend for the honor but chose James the just as bishop of Jerusalem. That's pretty amazing considering the aspirations for power and leadership that particularly James and John had as they walked with Jesus and his earthly ministry. They wanted to have the positions of preeminence of leadership but Clement says they deferred to Jesus brother James and chose him to lead the church in Jerusalem. To me that speaks powerfully of the change that had worked been worked in the lives of these men. Chronologically the first reference to James as someone influential is mentioned by Paul in Galatians 1 18 he says after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days but I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. This probably happened around 37 AD or so we'll try to keep some of these dates in mind. It's likely that James was put into leadership somewhere in the early 40s AD within the first 10 years or so of Pentecost. The next indication that we have of his influence is around the year 44 in Acts 1217. You'll remember that James Sr. was arrested by Herod, was put in prison, was beheaded and so he was off the scene and Herod saw how much that pleased the Jews and so he decided to take another one of the disciples the apostles and he arrested Peter and had the same designs for him. Peter of course was delivered by an angel, came out of prison, he ended up at the prayer meeting that was in session for him and once he was finally able to convince his brothers and sisters in Christ that their prayers had worked. It's always great to realize that prayer does work. He said this. He said go tell these things to James and to the brethren. It indicates the position of leadership that James had. Particularly this position is established by the mid to late 40s or so. Paul writes about this in Galatians 2. He talks about how after 14 years he went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas to see and make sure that the message he had been preaching was approved by what he calls the pillars there in Jerusalem and so he shares with them what he had been teaching with the result being in verse 9 that when James, Cephas and John who seem to be pillars perceived the grace that been given to me they gave me and Barnabas the right hand a fellowship that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. So they agreed to focus their ministry on the Jewish people and Paul and Barnabas to focus on the Gentile people. They gave them the right hand a fellowship and James of course is listed first there indicating likely his preeminence in leadership in Jerusalem. Also in the late 40s or early 50s we have the story from Paul in Galatians 2 where Peter had come from Antioch and Paul withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed Paul says for certain men came from James certain men came from James and after they arrived in Antioch Peter withdrew from fellowship with the Gentile Christians because of some sort of concern about what these Jewish believers would think from James and Peter and even Barnabas was carried away and the rest of the Jews by this this hypocrisy. Paul's statement was to Peter if you being a Jew live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? There's a similar situation of course in Acts 15 I don't know whether this is the same situation or not where you have Jewish Christians from Jerusalem going to Antioch and attempting to Judaize the Gentile believers meaning what they were preaching was you have to as a Gentile become a Jew first then become a Christian. If you want to become a Christian you have to become Jewish first then become a Christian. Be circumcised follow the commands of Moses and that is the approved path to Christianity. Obviously that raised a big dispute. James was not listed in that passage that they came from him but it caused a big stir and so it led to a major brothers meeting or maybe you could say a leaders meeting in Jerusalem. Paul, Barnabas, a bunch of people from Antioch travel to Jerusalem to hash out what should be done about Gentile believers and what should be expected of them and what's fascinating is you have Peter standing up and sharing what he's sharing there's a lot of disputing going on Paul and Barnabas share what God has done through them and then it says everything became silent. Then James spoke up and he gives a summary of what he sees going on he quotes some Scripture and he provides a path forward as to what he believes ought to be done in telling the Gentile Jews or Gentile Christians what they should do or what is expected of them in order to follow the Messiah and the result of that stand by James and that leadership is that everyone was pleased and a letter was drafted and was sent back to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas as well as emissaries from the Jerusalem church and everywhere they went sharing this message of what had been decided there was encouragement there was joy there was peace there was excitement why because James had exercised wise leadership the church banded together and they all recognized that this is pleasing to the Holy Spirit this is the direction that we ought to take and that account is where I really see the indisputable authority of James in the church there there's one final passage that has James's leadership fingerprints on it and that is in Acts 21 it's probably the mid to late 50s AD by now this is the story of Paul traveling to Jerusalem along with his entourage the brothers received them gladly and it says that after they'd gotten there the following day Paul went in with us to James and all the elders were present and when he had greeted them he told in detail those things which God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry and when they heard it they glorify God and they said to him you see brother how many myriads of Jews there are who have believed and they're all zealous for the law but they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses this is a big concern Paul are you are you saying that Jewish Christians shouldn't follow Moses now this is this can get a little bit perplexing here in what happens next what happens next is it doesn't mention James's name but it says he went into James and the elders at least the elders have this plan they said to Paul look here are four men that have made a vow we want you to pay their expenses and also be purified yourself to prove to all the Jewish brothers that you still walk in an orderly manner and you support the law of Moses now this is Paul Paul is the one who if I have my Romans correct really comes down hard on the law and the the fact that the law is put away the law of Moses is unnecessary the law of Moses that's for back there we have something new this Paul submits to this plan to show the people the Jewish Christians that he is and the Jewish non-christians that he is still walking orderly and he still supports the law of Moses what are we to make of all of that in a nutshell I believe that Paul was living out what he expressly stated to the Jews I will become as a Jew I will become all things to all people without denying my Messiah I believe that's what James was living I believe that that was his his vision his desire this is what I see in James's leadership now remember the the guys that came from James some of them were really zealous and they felt like the Gentiles had become Jews before they become Christians I'm not sure how that all went down but it indicates to me that if nothing else James was a devout Jewish Christian he did not see those as two things that had to be split apart or divorced one from another what we see in James's leadership are several things but James was about doing John Maxwell says that leaders have a bias for doing things for getting things done James was a leader James had a bias for getting things done he was a doer we can confirm that from his letter James says in his epistle that he wants his listeners to be swift to hear but then he hastens on to say that he doesn't want them to just be hearers but be doers doers of the word faith and works must not be put as under his is a letter that moves and it wants people to move someone has noted that James's short letter has 54 imperatives that means 54 do-somethings in 108 verses that's on average of one do-something for every two verses this is a man who was doing things and he was calling people to do things he was a doer he wasn't a Judaizer but he was a doer and he believed that Gentile believers should also be doers and he wasn't just about doing James was about doing hard things hard things by his example he chose to continue living as a devout Jew after his conversion and he did this without denying his brother Messiah and he was apparently so strict in his expectations of himself that his disciples tended to take it one step further and assume that he would endorse the Judaizing of the Gentiles that's that's the sort of influence that I see James wielding in the Jerusalem church so the life of James the leadership of James these are things we can learn from but what is the legacy of James you can imagine that such a legendary figure has all sorts of fanciful stories that have been attached to him and so it's tough to figure out sifting back through the mists of time and the biases of historians exactly what all we should believe about him that's how fanciful some of the stories are and yet I believe there are certain things that are true as we look at his life and his letter and how they corroborate one of the accounts talks of how he was a great intercessor and he was much on his knees and he was praying for his people I believe that's corroborated by his letter he talks about how Elijah was a man of like passions like as like we were we are and he prayed he stopped the rain for three and a half years we also have the power through prayer to do mighty things the legacy or the legend is that his knees became as hard as Camelneys I don't know if that's true or not but he apparently spent a lot of time in prayer praying for his people he was very concerned about the Jewish people obviously he led as an elder or a bishop for 20 to 25 years or so what a wonderful legacy that is he lived a wise and blameless life in fact he lived in such a way that he became known as James the just or James the righteous talk about an amazing nickname an amazing description by this time he was likely in his mid 50s late early 60s and you would think that such an upright man would have no enemies but you know he faced the very same sorts of enemies that his perfect brother did and the historic accounts state that James became so influential in winning Jewish people to Christ to the kingdom that the leaders became very alarmed people from their own ranks were starting to recognize Jesus as Messiah we've got to do something about this man and so there are varying accounts was it the Sadducees was it the Pharisees whoever it was it seemed like it was religious leaders who concocted a plan to put James at the center of attention during Passover apparently they came to James they talked to him they said we know that you are a just man you do not show partiality you're no respecter of persons you treat everyone the same everyone respects you because you don't respect persons and we want you to stand up in the midst of the Passover and explain to everyone who is here who Jesus is and their hope was to pressure James to renounce Christ so that people would stop flocking to the Messiah I don't think James was looking for this I don't think he was angling for it but somehow he was placed on a high place of the temple the pinnacle or a high wall or something and they commanded him to to speak of Jesus and what he said was clear and unequivocal the account says that his statement was why do you ask me about Jesus the Son of Man he is now sitting in the heavens on the right hand of great power and is about to come on the clouds of heaven and as many were confirmed and gloried in this testimony of James and said Hosanna to the Son of David the priests and the Pharisees the leaders recognized that they had miscalculated their scheme they realized that this thing was backfiring and suddenly they decided that they had to do something to stop this thing that was going off the rails and according to the accounts they pushed him off of that high place to the pavement below or something of that nature in an attempt to kill him however he wasn't he wasn't killed he he survived hurting I would imagine he was able to get onto his knees and he began to pray for them they were so enraged that they began to to stone him to do away with him but James on his knees is praying I entreat you oh lord god and father forgive them for they know not what they do and according to the account one of the priests who was of the house of recibs you remember the recibites that were highly esteemed by Jeremiah the prophet a priest of the house of recibs stood by he said stop what are you doing this just man is praying for you so you have a great melee going on with crowds who are very supportive of James you have religious leaders who are angry at James and seeking to destroy him they stoned him and continued to to attempt to do him in until a fuller this is a a man who beats out material to clean it a fuller uses a club to beat out that that cloth apparently a fuller or someone had a fuller's club came along and it says they beat out James's brains there and he died and so James suffered martyrdom but his legacy is one of a faithful witness one who endured unto the end and interestingly enough Josephus who is a non-christian non-believing Jewish historian claims that immediately after this whether it was immediately or several years right after this the Romans put Jerusalem under siege and Josephus says that he blames or he considers that it was because of the mistreatment the injustice the murder of James the just and he's not the only one there are other people looking on who went through those days who lived through those days who also felt that the Jewish or the Roman siege was directly related to the mistreatment of James faithful unto death a characteristic of his legacy another aspect of James's legacy is his willingness to remain within a strict religious culture in order to win the people of that culture today we're in a setting right here where there are people who are or have been Amish perhaps nationwide eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite river brethren German Baptist Washington County Mennonite or something similar my beloved brethren I appeal to you to consider the example of James it may well be God's will for you to remain within a strict religious culture in order to affect positive influence within that culture obviously James's culture didn't even accept the New Testament so you've got a lot easier than he did I do not see our Lord's brother isolating himself either from the broader group of believers he was willing to blend in if you will to recognize a culture and to be part of that culture and not seek to be individualistic or to stand out he lived his life in such a way that it encouraged his followers to do radical things he lived his life in a way that makes me uncomfortable with how much he integrated with Jewish culture but I am here to learn from him at a minimum I think it is time for us to stop bashing strict god-fearing religious cultures the only way to overcome the dominant world culture is to live and present a dominant radical Christian culture within the kingdom context of course interestingly the liberals thought that James was conservative because he appeared to be a Judaizer and then on the other side of the spectrum you have the conservatives who considered him liberal because his letter doesn't say anything about the mosaic law there's a lot of doing in there but nothing about the mosaic law that is part of his legacy now that's not the best part of it I mean anyone can appear more conservative to those who are more liberal than he or more liberal than to those who are more conservative than he I think that could even have happened today you know when I first got up to speak and those of you who are here today or are watching online when you saw that I was wearing a plain suit it's possible that you immediately just put me into the more conservative camp but for those of you who are listening on the telephone line or to a future recording it's also possible that when you heard me begin with a narrative with a story it did not see how I was dressed you put me into a more liberal camp isn't that interesting still happens today so the amazing thing is not that James appeared more conservative to those who are more liberal or more liberal to those who are more conservative the amazing thing is that people who are on all sides of James looked at James and they said this is a just man the way this man is living is right and it is good and it is righteous and yes the culture is a little strange to us but it's a good way it's a godly way it's a way to point the points to Christ it is a kingdom way that my brothers and sisters is the legacy of James the fact that people who didn't even agree with him looked at him as a man to be trusted and yes even a man to be emulated probably the best known part of James's legacy is the bible book that bears his name in five short chapters he packs quite a punch but he does so from a distinctly Christian perspective I like how commentator Douglas Mu says it he says James depends more than any other New Testament author on the teaching of Jesus it is not that James directly quotes Jesus rather that he weaves Jesus teaching into the very fabric of his own instruction the author of the letter seems to have been so soaked in the atmosphere and specifics of Jesus teaching that he can reflect them almost unconsciously James was so filled with the teachings of his brother so permeated that the wisdom of Christ and the way of Christ and the word of Christ simply flowed out of his writing and so this is my challenge for you today I leave you with a challenge to do something my challenge is not just to hear the word of James's brother but to do it my challenge is for you to pick up the Sermon on the Mount and to read it today Matthew five six and seven read it today and every day for 30 days and every day I'm calling you to ask yourself the question as you read that passage am I obeying these commands am I obeying these commands I'm calling you to saturate yourself to soak yourself in the words of Christ in the words of our king so that we too like James can present a life leadership and legacy that honor our king